Yesterday, we asked the Chairman of the Development Finance Corporation,
about how the organization's loans portfolio is performing in these pandemic times. We also asked about new entrepreneurs, and if they are approaching the DFC to seek financing, given these challenging economic times.
He said that the DFC's clients continue to show resilience, despite the challenges facing the private sector:
Henry Anderson - DFC, Chairman
"When you're an investment bank, you have not only lend and walk away, you have to work, you have to provide technical support, so the team at the DFC, like climate resiliency, they are trained in that and they know when they are looking at an opportunity how to look at that, this thing also has inclusive, so we want to get women in business. We look at all of it and give the support. There are cases where things go undone but the way we manage risk over our portfolio, we are able to is something slip, then we make it up from else where in the portfolio."
Daniel Ortiz
"Sir tell us what has been the level of activity from Belizean entrepreneurs in trying to engage the DFC for financing, for any sort of support from the DFC in trying to recover or at least trying to start business currently in this climate that we are in?"
Henry Anderson
"It has been robust, the DFC have worked and provided what you call forbearance on about 40 million dollars worth of loans during the COVID-19 times and we must say this, despite the challenging times that the projections in terms of interest and collections have been slightly exceeded, which means that Belizeans entrepreneur, take your business seriously and when you have that kind of climate and the kind of ingenuity that people have and the creativity, we're seeing that the businesses are coming back, we have new projects coming on, we have businesses looking to expand to put a little spin on what they were doing, so we're seeing that."
